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Amy Goldstein
Reporter covering health policy and other social policy issues
The Trump administration announced Friday that confidential records of approximately 75,000 consumers had been hacked from one of the data portals used to help people purchase health care plans through the federal insurance marketplace of the Act on the protection of the affordable price.
The violation, involving a system used by agents and brokers under the insurance program, exposed credit and other personal information. This disrupted one aspect of the ACA insurance underwriting process less than two weeks before the start of the annual registration period for coverage created by the 2010 Health Care Act.
According to a spokesperson for the Medicare and Medicaid Service Centers of the Department of Health and Social Services, the online route for agents and brokers The federal insurance purse was closed earlier this week, although officials hope to reopen it a few days before the start of the six-week registration period, Nov. 1.
The tens of thousands of people whose records have been compromised represent a relatively small share of the 8.7 million Americans enrolled for this year's coverage. This breach comes as Trump's medical assistants attempt to strengthen the role of agents and brokers in the ACA registration process, instead of the HealthCare.gov computer system that consumers use directly.
This breach is apparently the first since the fall of 2013, when Americans began buying health plans as part of the ACA, although HealthCare.gov debuted with serious technical problems that prevented many people to register this initial year.
In a statement on Friday night, Seema Verma, CMS Administrator, said: "Open registrations will not be negatively affected", as Federal Call Centers and HealthCare.gov will be uninterrupted for Americans who wish to do so. ; register.
Verma and other senior health administration officials have been opposed, adopting changes that weaken the law while presenting themselves as effective and profitable registration cycles.
According to the CMS statement, the agency's staff found for the first time "an abnormal activity" last Saturday in the online registration procedure offered to agents and brokers. They started an initial investigation. On Tuesday, a breach was detected. An investigation by the federal police is underway.
"We are working to identify potentially affected people as quickly as possible in order to inform them and provide them with resources such as protecting their credit," said Verma.
A spokesman for CMS said that because of the investigation, he could not answer a variety of questions, including how piracy had been noticed and if officials knew who had committed the problem. ;offense.
Verma said in a statement: "We will continue to work tirelessly to help potentially affected people and ensure the protection of consumer information."
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